The Daily Ant
Myrmecology Dies in Darkness
Author: Benjamin Blanchard
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Sometimes, The New York Times is depressingly anti-ant. Other times, it produces excellent ant-friendly content such as this video recently sent to The Daily Ant by Comic Correspondant Matt Hernandez and Field Correspondant Ana Rita:
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Ants are all kinds of smelly, and a recent study in PNAS advances our understanding of the molecular and genetic bases of these smells. See here for Vanderbilt University’s coverage of the study, and enjoy the below video produced in concert with the study’s publication. Thanks to Coffee Correspondant Ciara Reyes for bringing our attention to this study!
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Some time ago, Tube Correspondant Katerina Theodossiou let us know about a remarkable scene from Jane the Virgin, a show that Rotten Tomatoes justifiably rates as 100% fresh: The inclusion of ants in the third season (and this is not the only occurrence!) virtually guarantees that this season, like the first two, will receive perfect marks from…
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Remember, dear readers, to stay vigilant against mainstream vertebrate bias, which takes many forms (really!). Pedagogical Correspondant Anna Cox shared with us yet another example of sneaky anti-ant writing featured in a practice test, in the form of the New York Times highlighting an invasive ant species in 2013. Invasive ants give the rest of the…
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Comic Correspondant Matt Hernandez recently brought to our attention an interesting investigation of ant strength by Poorly Drawn Lines. Take a look: This is not the first time that Poorly Drawn Lines has incorporated ants into their excellent work, and in fact they have a couple other pieces using ants that we have yet to feature…
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The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the twentieth contribution in the series and the first coauthored piece, jointly submitted by Eddy Chen (陈科名) and Isaac Wilhelm. Edited on Sunday, July 9, 2017. From Ants to Quantum Non-Locality Though much has been said about…
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Thanks to a heads up from an avid reader who recently contacted us with the news, The Daily Ant has learned that this year’s Wimbledon tournament just received a great blessing. What blessing? Why, ants, of course! On Wednesday local time, millions of winged ants emerged to participate in a special nuptial flight the Brits call…
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The reproductive system of most ants is pretty freaky, by human standards. Unlike in our species, where all individuals have a diploid set of chromosomes, nearly all ant species utilize a “haplodiploid” system in which females are diploid and males are haploid, with only one chromosome for each chromosomal site. So, in order to produce…
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Tube Correspondant Katerina Theodossiou shared with us a shocking scene from the vertebrate television show Friends With Better Lives: Correspondant Theodossiou added: It’s from a show called friends with better lives It’s terrible I don’t know why I’m watching it It’s not good in any way Except that ants moment. That made me actually laugh out…
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This is an extrafloral nectary: Extrafloral nectaries, or “EFNs”, are little sources of sugar and nitrogen produced to entice ants to visit host plants. The plants, in return, enjoy the significant defensive capabilities of the ants, which often repel herbivorous insects. Given this benefit, it is perhaps not surprising that many different plant species and…
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The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the nineteenth contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Lorraine Keller. Ants Doing Math and Kids Doing Linguistics? It is probably no surprise that the desert ant, Cataglyphis, has already been mentioned several times on…
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In fact ants, to cite just one example, work unselfishly for the community; we humans sometimes do not look good by comparison. We are supposed to be higher beings, so we must act according to our higher selves. — Dalai Lama XIV, Tenzin Gyatso, How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life (2003)
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